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City of Toronto issues extreme cold weather alert

With the arrival of frigid temperatures, Toronto’s medical officer of health has issued an extreme cold weather alert for the city.

The alert, which was issued on Thursday, will remain in effect until further notice.

The issuing of the alert means there will be extra street outreach for vulnerable residents and warming centres will be open.

“Extreme cold weather alerts activate local services that focus on getting and keeping vulnerable residents inside,” the city said in a release.

“A warming centre is open at Metro Hall by 7 p.m. the day an alert is called, and remains open continuously until noon on the day an alert is terminated. Other services include notification to community agencies to relax any service restrictions, availability of transit tokens in some drop-ins, and additional overnight street outreach.”

680 NEWS meteorologist Jill Taylor said it will be cold through the weekend, with the high near -5 C.

“Get used to these minus temperatures [and] some cold windchills,” she said.

“Really bundle up tomorrow morning, it will be even colder. The windchill for Friday [will be] -19 in the morning.”

But there will be some relief from the winter weather early next week.

Taylor said the high will be just above 0 C, but it will be short-lived.